Vengeance (The Kurgan War Book 4) (14 page)

The news that someone could have gotten their hands on a virus of such potency shook Sheridan to his core. In the blink of an eye, his private vendetta with Harry was forgotten. The future of the entire human race was now at stake. “Sir, the colonel who took over the investigation from us on Eris, is he one of your men?”

Oshiro nodded. “His name is Colonel Valens. He is a special warfare officer who commands a team of medical and military specialists who are trained to deal with biological outbreaks.”

“Does he have any idea where the virus could have gone?” Cole asked.

“Not right now. To be honest, it could be anywhere. Valens’ people are working night and day to try to recover the virus before it can be used. All we know for certain is that there are people on Tranquility Station who assisted the enemy in obtaining the virus.”

“All the more reason for us to get up there without delay,” said Sheridan.

“I agree. Good luck and good hunting.” With that, Oshiro ended the conversation.

“Good God, if that virus were to be released here on Earth it could wipe out all ten billion people living on the planet,” said Elba.

“Yeah, and they’d all be dead because of a bug we designed and built ourselves,” said Cole, shaking his head. “Sometimes our own stupidity is beyond belief.”

Elba looked at Sheridan. “Sir, can I come with you? I did a stint up there a few months back. I can help. I know my way around some of Tranquility Station’s less-traveled paths.”

“If things are as bad as it sounds, we could use her,” voiced Cole.

“What about her boss, what are we going to tell him?” asked Sheridan.

“Nothing. By the time the ADF figures out where she is, we’ll either have found what we’re looking for, or we’ll have failed spectacularly and it won’t matter what happens. Come on, sir, we need her and you know it.”

Sheridan let out a sigh and held out his hand. “Welcome aboard, Anne. From here on out drop the rank and we’ll all get along just fine.”

Elba smiled as she shook Sheridan’s hand. “You won’t regret this . . . ?”

“My fake ID says Mark, but my real name is Michael.”

“You won’t regret this, Mike.”

Sheridan’s face turned serious. “No, but you might.”

Chapter 18

Harry Williams opened the door to his room and stepped inside. It was a tiny space with only a collapsible cot and a slender plastic locker for furnishings. It, however, was perfect for him. The less he had, the less he had to worry about when it came time for him to leave.

He sat down on his bed and let out a tired yawn. He had been on the go for the past few days and had yet to take a break. His exhausted body had told him to get off his feet for a few hours before he fell asleep standing up. He glanced at his watch and saw that Solari would be arriving in just over twelve hours’ time along with Generals Sadir and Wagner. The generals were going to conduct a morale tour of the facilities on Tranquility Station, the highlight of which would be a speech to the men and women who tirelessly worked in the station’s control center. Williams smiled when he thought of the reception they had planned for the foolish humans. He decided to take a four-hour nap so he’d be rested when the time came for the real work to begin.

Before laying back on his bed, he reached into a pocket on his coveralls and brought out a picture of his parents and his younger sister. It had been taken at his graduation ceremony from the Academy. He hadn’t heard a word from them since the day he had learned he and his family were Kurgan operatives. Once the authorities were alerted to his family’s treachery, they had been detained and shipped to an internment camp on Mars. Anyone suspected of being a Kurgan sympathizer was held at the heavily guarded Utopia Isolation Center. He had heard the rumors of the brainwashing and forced conversions going on inside the camp. He feared for his sister’s well-being. She was a quiet and reserved girl who could easily fall victim to the military’s aggressive mind tricks. His life meant nothing to him. He was resigned to the fact that one day he would die fighting for what he believed in. Everything he did now was for his family.

There was a gentle knock on his door.

Williams put his family picture away and sat up. “Yes, who is it?”

“It’s me, Bill, can I come in?”

“Come.”

The door slid open and a short man with curly black hair walked in the room.
 

Although dead tired, Williams tried to sound awake and alert, “What’s up?”

“I thought you should know that there has been an explosion on Atlantis. It would appear that a couple of men were snooping around and set off the explosives we left behind.”

Williams forgot his fatigue and stood up. “Were they killed in the blast?”

“I don’t know. My usual informer was drowned when water flooded the bottom floors of the city.”

Williams gripped his accomplice’s shoulder. “Bill, this is important, I need to know who these people are and if they are dead or not. Can you do that for me?”

The curly haired man nodded. “Sure, Harry, I’ll get on it right away.”

“Thanks.”

Bill turned and left the room.

For a few seconds, Williams debated whether he should rest or not. He knew he’d be of no good to the mission with a cloudy mind and sat back down on his bed. He knew precisely who the men were. They were the same ones who had killed Solari’s men in Rome and were the same ones he had enticed into coming back to Earth to try to catch him. The one thing that drove him on was the thought of personally killing Michael Sheridan and his friend Alan Cole. After all, they were the ones who had stopped him once before and had brought his family to the attention of the authorities. They were responsible for his family’s plight and would pay for that transgression.

Williams laid back on his cot. He could feel his eyes growing heavy. Before giving in, he brought up his watch and checked when the next scheduled shuttle flights from Earth were due to dock at the station. With hundreds of ships coming and going each day, it would be pointless to send his few spare men to look for the two Marines. The thought of taking stimulants to keep him awake flashed in his mind.
No, it is humans, not Kurgans, who are weak and use drugs that pollute their bodies and their minds. He was Kurgan, he would remain pure. What will be . . . will be
, he thought as he placed his weary head down on his pillow.

Within seconds, he fell into a deep sleep.

Chapter 19

“We’ll be docking at Tranquility Station in the next five minutes,” announced the shuttle’s pilot over the craft’s speaker system.

Sheridan nudged Cole with his elbow waking him up from his all-too-short nap. Both men had changed out of the clothes they had bought in Russia and were now wearing green coveralls and caps to blend in with the station’s military cargo handling personnel. There was a rainbow of colored clothing for the people working at the spaceport. From purple to white to red to blue to orange, each one represented a different duty station on the orbiting city. They had chosen the one worn by the largest number of base personnel which hopefully wouldn’t draw any attention their way. Elba was dressed like a tourist who was looking to get away from it all and have fun during her stay.

Before the war, the space station had been under civilian control and had been a lucrative enterprise for its business owners. Now things were different. Federalized the day after war was declared, the armed forces now ran Tranquility Station and kept it running day and night.

Sheridan sat up and looked over at his comrades. “Alright, since we have no idea what our fourth infiltrator looks like, we’ll have to go with the only things we do know. If our shady friend on Atlantis is to be believed, the Chosen operative came up here in the past couple of days to work, and his name is Bill.”

“That’s razor thin,” said Cole. “I bet they get thousands of people coming and going from the station on a daily basis.”
 

“I know but aside from bumping into Harry, it’s all we’ve got to work with right now.”

Elba looked at the image of Williams on her watch and memorized his face. On the way up, Sheridan had filled her in on who he was and their history together.

“So what’s your plan?” asked Cole.

“As the station is enormous, we’ll be better off splitting up and working separately,” explained Sheridan. “I’ll see what I can find in the station’s computer banks and administrative records, while you poke your nose around the various loading and unloading docks to see if anyone has noticed anything or anyone suspicious in the past few days.”

“I can do that.”

“And me?” asked Elba.

“Head straight for the bars and see what you can learn from the men coming off shift. There’s nothing like a few stiff drinks to loosen the tongues of men who don’t even know they are being played for information.”

Elba smiled and held up the fifty credit card Cole had given her back in Atlantis. “Back into the breach I go.”

“If anyone comes across anything, no matter how small and trivial it may appear, it is vital that you share it with everyone else without delay.”

Elba and Cole nodded.

Sheridan shifted in his seat and looked out his window at Tranquility Station. He’d been there a few times before when he was in the Academy but until today had never given the place much thought. The outer ring was ten kilometers in circumference while the central tower was seven kilometers in length from top to bottom. A large glass dome sat at the very top of the tower. Inside was a vast greenhouse where fruits and vegetables were grown. He had read that the administrative and business offices were on the top floors of the tower. In the middle were the various shops and restaurants that catered to the people working and visiting the installation. Below them were several floors dedicated to recycling water and waste materials that could be reused on the station. While the bottom level was reserved for sleeping quarters and maintenance facilities.

Cole checked his watch, leaned forward in his chair, and picked up a hardened case from the floor. He opened it and smiled. Before leaving Atlantis, Cole had requested replacement weapons for the ones they had lost. Inside the case were three brand new Mark IV pistols. Small but deadly, the weapons were issued to combat pilots if they ever had to eject behind enemy lines. They had a built-in silencer and a laser sight under the barrel of the gun. For each pistol, there were four full magazines of caseless ammo.
 

“Here,” said Cole as he handed out the pistols. “As we’re back in uniform, it only makes sense that we’d go around armed.”

“And me?” asked Elba.

“You can tell people that you’re an overly cautious traveler,” replied Cole with a wink.

“Anne, where’s a good place to RV later?” Sheridan asked.

“The Dionysus Bar on the fourteenth floor would work. It’s a quiet spot that caters to people who want to relax without being bothered.”

“Okay, that settles it, we’ll all meet there at twenty-one hundred hours tonight and pass on what we’ve learned.”

The shuttle slowed down and came to a stop alongside an airlock. Within seconds, the docking arm extended and an airtight seal was established. One of the shuttle’s crewmen got out of his seat and waited for the walkway to be pressurized before opening the door.

Sheridan, Cole, and Elba placed their weapons in their holsters and walked out of the shuttle. A youthful-looking guard with a retinal scanner in his hands was waiting to record their identities into the installation’s data banks. Before he could raise up his device, Elba shoved her ID in the man’s face.

“There’s no need to record who we are, Private. Trust me when I say that there are people way above your pay grade who know who we are and what we are doing here.”

The young man stood there with his mouth half open staring at Elba’s ID.
 

Elba smiled. “If your boss gives you hell, just tell him that the scanner was faulty and you were unable to record our images.”

The private stepped aside and nodded.

“This way,” said Elba as she led her colleagues away from the arrival terminal and out into the station’s outer ring.
 

“I’ve got to get me an ID like that,” said Cole.
 

Elba chuckled. “Good luck with that. The background checks are exhausting. To do what I do, you can’t have so much as a parking ticket on file.”

“You’re screwed, then,” joked Sheridan.

Cole shrugged and fell in line with the others as they made their way through a crowd of people eagerly waiting to board a ship heading back down to Earth. The corridor was filled with military and civilian personnel moving to and from their jobs. They walked for a couple of minutes before stopping next to a pallet of spare parts for a ship’s engine. A noisy cleaning droid moved around them and kept on vacuuming the floor.

“This looks as good a spot as any other to split up,” said Sheridan.

“Okay, good luck,” Cole said shaking his friends’ hands before pulling his cap down slightly and walking off. Sheridan couldn’t help but notice that Cole had placed himself behind a couple of nurses as they made their way down the long corridor.

“Sir . . . I mean, Mike, just to let you know, we’re not alone up here,” said Elba.